News from the web

DEFRA has issued guidance for the upcoming single-use plastic ban in October which was published on gov.uk on 23 May. The guidance can be found here.

Ahead of the Paris negotiations led by UNEP to create a global treaty to prevent plastic pollution (INC2) the environmental group Greenpeace issued a warning that recycling plastics can lead to more toxic materials with higher concentrations of chemicals and the loss of microplastics into the environment.

UCL study suggests that plastics containing biodegration accelerators (also known as oxodegradable) do not reliably biodegrade within the time frames of the claims manufacturers make. See the report here.

Another chemical recycling project has failed, the second in the UK this year. Despite this, the Government seems intent on promoting a technology which has a long list of proven failures, is heavily energy intensive and potentially more polluting than making virgin plastics – and without a certain market uptake for the outputs. Sigh, will [...]

Paul Foulkes-Arellano, circularity educator at Circuthon Consulting, has written a very interesting article in the Packaging Insights magazine this April on the evolution of the biopolymers market. His view is that, with industrial giants moving into biopolymer production (see the news here on Novamont), it is time to invest.

DEFRA Secretary of State Thérèse Coffey has announced on the BBC that the Government will propose a ban on wet wipes in legislation which should come into force in 2024. Whether this will ban all wipes or exclude from the ban those that are certified for marine biodegradability, remains an open question.

Dr Helmut Maurer, who many of you will recall was a senior official within the DGENVI of the European Commission and now retired, was recently interviewed on the implementation of the Green Deal and especially on plastics recycling. His answers are well worth listening to in this short video.

Thirty-five academic and private partners from across Europe and China are now working together on the AgriLoop project, which will develop sustainable processes to convert agri-food residues into high-value, eco-friendly products for use in food, feed and bio-based materials. This new collaboration will find new uses for agri-food residues: currently an underexploited resource for both [...]

Last month’s UK Budget increased the Plastic Packaging Tax from £200 to £210.82 per tonne. Tragically none of that income to Treasury is hypothecated for the building of plastic waste management infrastructure and will have little impact on improving plastic recycled rates. Meanwhile, unverifiable claims about the 30 per cent ‘recycled’ content of plastics which [...]

The Court hearing for the legal case taken against the European Commission by Symphony Environmental Ltd for the ban on oxo(bio)degradable plastics introduced in the Single Use Plastics Directive, was held on the morning of 20 March in Luxembourg. The hearing took four hours, and the Court reserved the right to make judgement. Normally this [...]